Euthanise the Creature
Much like the right kind of sex, I smell good
in the unwashed ambience of a Sunday morning
when taking a shortcut through the churchyard
and getting home on whatever God doesn’t keep.
There are those of us who will never
catch the scent of it on their tongues
and for that, I am sympathetic as a hallway.
There are nights that I too have stretched my palms
across the neighbouring body to mine
and convinced myself
that the innocuous hum of indifference
travelling between us was some kind
of beautiful song in a foreign language.
There are times that I too have fantasised
of a call for help at the foot of the stairs
as the hallway and I remain silent.
The both of us, on our backs since birth,
have no business asking anything remain unbroken.
St. Guthlac Street
The boys had been fighting upstairs again,
two-out-of-three falls giddy
in punch-ups
but still sleeping with the light on,
and the lamppost outside, concerned,
all struggle-mouth to articulate
the ways it would be needed
to shine pretty-bastards of light
on their sons,
or the strict wind of a cringing god
to tear great-galloping-shitless
through them
to bite down on their scruffs
guiding them above the frequency of the street
every house, a big dented radio of warning,
every bathroom, a child in the tub,
inviting every radio he could find.
Silk Cut
Look, sometimes we let a little trauma
salt the meat of the men we become
when we were boys
every son on the street
was a murderer
suffocating their softest parts
so their fathers
had less of them to hurt
unbuttoning buildings
to sneak upstairs
past curfew
if caught
their cries for mercy
were tested on the damn birds
until the damn birds
were broken.
RESURRECTION mag 